The French Mistake II: J-Squared's Odyssey
by Larbo
Summary: In 2011, Sam and Dean Winchester faced their most bizarre challenge of all when they were thrust into the lives of two d-bag Blue Steel face-pulling actors called Jensen and Jared playing Sam and Dean on a TV show called "Supernatural". We all know what happened when Sam and Dean went to "our" world, but what happened to Jensen and Jared...?
1. Teaser

**The French Mistake 2: J-Squared's Odyssey**

 **February, 2011**

Sam and Dean had never seen Balthazar act like this before.

By angel standards he was already kind of unusual; most of them seemed either robots with cosmic sticks up their collective asses (like Cas had been for the first year or so they'd known him) or psychotic power-crazed winged dicks hellbent on letting their little Apocalypse play out on Earth, and to hell with what those jumped-up apes in clothes thought, like…well, like pretty much every other angel apart from Cas.

Balthazar had been different. Oh sure, he'd had that air of danger about him that all angels had, that feeling that if you crossed them or if they felt bored by you in any way, whether you were Jeffrey Dahmer or Mother Teresa, you'd be left cradling your intestines in your hands like jigsaw pieces. But he'd had an air of selfish hedonism about him that they'd only ever seen from Gabriel in his Trickster days.

All of that cocksureness was gone now. Balthazar was worried. He was pacing around Bobby Singer's kitchen like an expectant father, grabbing things seemingly at random from Bobby's eclectic collection of occult ingredients.

"You expect us to just believe you?" Sam said.

Balthazar barely looked up. "Oh, don't," he replied airily, but his tone betrayed the worry he was feeling, which only served to worry the Winchester brothers more. It took a lot to rattle a being as powerful as Balthazar. "You'll go where I throw you either way."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean snapped.

* * *

Something was coming.

Bobby Singer knew the signs well enough by now. He knew the difference between a regular ol' thunderstorm and one that was anything but, and this one definitely fell into the latter category. As his truck pulled up the driveway to his home, a huge bolt of lightning lit up the skies around for miles. The flash of light served to illuminate the figures of Sam and Dean through his ground floor windows…and standing with them-

"The hell?" Bobby growled. Balthazar. He hadn't met the piece of crap in person, but he recognised him from Sam's description. This so-called 'angel of the Lord' had been the one to suggest to Sam not too long past that in order for Sam's body to reject the return of his soul, he needed to 'scar his vessel' – and that meant trying to murder his father, or in Sam's case, a father figure.

It was, in a weird way, a compliment. But when there's a soulless hunter after your hide with the strength and skill of Sam Winchester, Bobby reflected, you don't stop to shout hooray that he'd chosen you. He'd forgiven Sam, because the boy hadn't been in his right mind – hell, he'd lacked a _soul_ for the love of Mike – who in hell knew what that did to a guy?

Forgiving Balthazar, however…well, that wasn't on Bobby Singer's to-do list.

He searched in the truck for a moment and grunted in satisfaction as his fingers closed around the object he'd been seeking. The skies chose that moment to sizzle with lightning once more, and the angel blade in Bobby's hands gleamed in the darkness.

Bobby exited the truck and made for the house. _I'm comin', boys._

* * *

Sam hefted the keys Balthazar had just thrown him. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Run with it," Balthazar replied – and with that, he was blown clear across the room.

A new figure had appeared. A thin man, with an intense expresson. Dean didn't take much satisfaction from the fact that this guy fitted squarely into the "psychotic dickbag angel" category he'd patented earlier.

"Virgil," Balthazar said.

This was clearly who he had been dreading. Dean looked around for something to fight with. They had an angel blade somewhere in the house – if he could only reach it. From the look on this Virgil's face, though, he might never get the chance. This Virgil was not a chitchat type of guy. He had the sort of eyes last seen circling sailors around the wreck of the _USS Indianapolis._

Sam knew it, too. He and Dean locked eyes for a moment, preparing for a fight that probably wasn't gonna go well. Virgil stalked toward them.

"I said, run!" Balthazar cried, and shoved them through the window.

* * *

"Sam! Dean!"

Bobby had abandoned his path toward the front door when the figures of the two boys had come crashing unceremoniously through the living room window. He ran to them, automatically checking for airway obstruction, movement, running through the old drills in his mind.

"Boys, talk to me! You alright?" he barked, the angel blade still tightly clutched in his hand. He was expecting Balthazar to come leaping through the window after Sam and Dean at any moment, and he needed to be ready to put himself between that dirtbag and his boys when that happened.

And then…Dean spoke.

Except, it didn't sound like Dean. At all.

"Oh, my _God_ ," the prone body of Dean said, in a voice that was all kinds of wrong. It was too high, too reedy. "I have glass IN MY HAND! There is ACTUAL GLASS IN MY HAND! Can we get someone over here?!"

Reaching down, Bobby grabbed Dean by the shoulder and hauled him onto his back so he could get a look, ostensibly to check the damage, but also just to make sure (and this was crazy, but hell) that it actually _was_ Dean.

It was.

Dean was holding up his hand. Sure enough, there was a sliver of glass protruding from it. It wasn't exactly a papercut, but Bobby Singer had seen Dean Winchester get shot and whine about a tenth as much as this.

He didn't have time for this. Balthazar would be pressing the attack any moment – in fact Bobby was vaguely astonished that the angel hadn't done so already. "You'll live," he huffed, and half-dragged, half-helped Dean to his feet. "Git up!"

Dean looked at him, properly looked, for what seemed to be the first time. He blinked, confused.

"Jim?" he said.

Bobby was starting to seriously worry now. He kept glancing at the house, waiting for Balthazar to appear. The angel had done something, that much was clear. "Jim?" Bobby repeated. "Who the hell's Jim, Dean? Get a grip, willya?"

"What the hell was that?"

It was Sam talking now. He had gotten to his feet, woozily. He didn't appear to be bleeding, but he was every bit as confused as Dean. Sam looked from Bobby, to Dean, to the house, and – this worried Bobby – to the skies above. "How are we outside?" Sam said.

"You got thrown through a window, Sam!" Bobby snapped. "Being outside tends to ensue!"

Sam looked at him.

"Jim?" he said.

Any response Bobby had to that was put on hold when an angel emerged from the house. To Bobby's surprise, however, it wasn't Balthazar; it was someone he had never seen before, even if he was giving off angel-vibes up the wazoo. Bobby stepped between the newcomer and Sam and Dean, brandishing the angel blade with a confidence he didn't feel. Even outnumbered three to one, this guy looked like a stone-cold killer. Where the hell was Cas when you needed him?

"I don't know what holy mojo you whammied these two with," Bobby snarled, "but you better back the hell off, fly-boy. Y'hear?"

The angel tilted his head to the side, like a predatory bird examining three particularly unpleasant rodents it had been forced to lower itself to eating. Bobby readied himself as best he could, hoping against hope that Sam and Dean would snap out of this and pull off some of that fabled Winchester miracle-working.

"They're not here," the angel said, matter-of-factly. He turned upward and addressed the tumultuous skies above directly. "Where did you hide them, Balthazar? You think this is clever? You think I won't find them?!"

There was a noise like thousands of birds bursting into flight at once…and the angel was gone.

Bobby allowed himself to breathe again. He had no idea what the hell was going on, but he knew he had somehow just avoided a confrontation that he hadn't had a hope in hell of seeing through alive, so he was more than willing to chalk that one in the 'win' column and move on.

"Now," he said, turning to face Sam and Dean, "what the hell did they hit you two with?"

Dean wasn't looking at him. In fact, Dean was currently whirling around and around, as if trying to look at everything around him all at once.

"BOB!" he hollered. "BOB! BOB! WHERE ARE YOU! WHAT'S GOING ON? BOB!"

 _He's gone blind_ , Bobby thought.

He ran to the boy, grabbed him by the shoulders. "Dean!" he said, physically shaking the younger man as if trying to snap him out of it. "I'm here!"

"BOB!"

Dean was looking straight at him. He wasn't blind, Bobby realised, feeling a little foolish for even thinking so. "Don't call me Bob, Dean," he snapped, starting to get a little irritated with this irrational crap, angel-mojo or no angel-mojo, "I hate 'Bob', and you know that. And would you stop with the hollerin'? I'm right here!"

Dean shook him off, eyes wide with what Bobby realised was half-anger, half-terror. "Jim," Dean said, "this _isn't funny anymore, dammit!_ Where is Bob?!"

"Bob who?" Bobby asked, giving up.

"Bob Singer!"

"Right damn here, Dean!"

"WOULD YOU STOP CALLING ME DEAN!"

There was a silence.

 _What have they done to you boys_ , Bobby thought. His mind raced. This wasn't his first rodeo. Neither 'Dean' nor 'Sam' – it was logical to assume whatever had hit 'Dean' had hit 'Sam' too, especially because both had called him 'Jim' – seemed hostile, at least for now. So that ruled out shapeshifters or ghouls or demonic possession, unless they were being especially crafty. The appearance of Balthazar and Christopher Walken Wannabe Angel couldn't be a coincidence, so it had to be connected with whatever was wrong with Dean and Sam. Memory spell? Mind transference? Soul siphon?

"Look," Sam was talking again. "Let's everyone just calm down, alright? This is obviously some sort of prank."

As Bobby watched, agape, Sam began to applaud sarcastically at thin air.

"Very funny, Sera! Very funny, guys!" Sam called into the night.

"Oh cram it, Jared!" Dean snapped.

" _Jared_?" Bobby said softly, to himself. Had to be code of some sort.

"This look like a prank to you, huh?" Dean was continuing, holding his injured hand up to Sam's face. This is BLOOD! Look! REAL BLOOD! I am INJURED here!"

Bobby Singer looked at his two boys, who had single-handedly saved the world more than once, who had stopped the Biblical Apocalypse, who had stood and fought near every damn type of monster you could name.

"What the _hell_ is going on?" he said.


	2. A Beer With Bobby

**Later that night…**

In his fifty years and change upon this forsaken planet, Bobby Singer had known pain.

He'd watched his darling wife be taken over by a demon. Her beautiful face, her gentle spirit, had been completely crushed by that invading black-eyed bastard puppeting her around in some grotesque parody of the woman he loved. He'd had to put her down himself; to look into the eyes of the only person he'd wanted to spend the rest of his days with and watch the life leave her body.

That had been bad, but it had only been the opening few notes in a symphony of agony that was to engulf his life. Becoming a Hunter had kept him sane, he knew that; if it hadn't been for the good he'd done in putting evil sons of bitches in the ground, he'd have hit the bottle so hard he wouldn't have come back out the other side (and even then, it had still been a close-run thing on occasion). Becoming a Hunter had also left him open to some epically crappy bad days, it was fair to say. Watching the boys – _his_ boys – be torn apart time after time by tragedy. Losing Jo and Ellen. Losing the use of his damn legs. And oh, not to forget the time only a few weeks back that Sam had gone all soulless-like and tried to gut him. Good times.

Bobby would have swapped almost any of those days for what he was going through right now, in his own damn kitchen, listening to someone with Dean's face and Dean's body talk on the phone.

"ACKLES! A! C! K! L! E! S!"

Oh yeah. Sorry. How could he have forgotten. Not Dean. _Jensen_.

"Jensen" was currently pacing around in a state of extreme agitation, unbeknownst to anyone currently present in a manner eerily similar to how Balthazar had been only a short time ago in the same place. His cellphone – Dean's cellphone – was pressed to his ear.

"How many times I gotta say this?" he was barking down the phone. Actually, scratch that. Dean could bark. With Jensen it was more of a yelp. "C'mon! What? What? _What?_ What d'you mean, _who?_ Haven't you _seen_ 'My Bloody Valentine', lady?"

Wonder of wonders, he actually paused.

"Okay, bad example," he conceded. "Whatever. Listen, honey – I have been _Kid. Napped._ Do you understand me? Do you realise what I'm saying? Somebody – prob'ly some crazed fan – has abducted me and I dunno, brainwashed poor Jim Beaver…" and here he gestured to Bobby, who had to check behind him before confirming that, yep, that was supposedly him he was referring to, "…and put him up to this nonsense. I don't even _know_ what part of Canada this is!"

That did it.

" _Canada_?!" Bobby said.

Jensen held up a finger to shush him, and to Bobby's astonishment it sort of worked because his initial instinct to floor the ignoramus was quelled, at least temporarily. He glanced at the other guy wearing the Sam costume, trying to recall his name. "Sam" only shrugged, indicating Jensen. As Bobby watched, he began tapping at walls, rapping on doors, as though checking for termites or something.

"Oh I'm _making this up_ , am I?!" Jensen exploded. "So I just _imagined_ being nominated for Teen Choice's "Breakout Star" Award in 2006, that right? That it, sugar? Who would make up something like that, huh?"

"Nobody I know," Bobby muttered. He reached for another beer.

Jensen's voice dropped to conspiratorial, although everyone in the kitchen could still hear every word he was saying. "Now look honey, I didn't wanna do this," he hissed, "but I have _connections_ , you understand? Oh like what? Like how about a little organisation called La Cosa Nostra, hmm? Texas branch, babe. Look it up."

There was a _click-dnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn_ from his direction.

Bobby swigged his beer.

"She hung up," Jensen said slowly, disbelievingly. "She. Hung. Up!"

"Imagine my horror, Vito," said Bobby.

It was then that "Sam" sat opposite him. Unlike Jensen, he was relatively calm. Bobby looked at the boy about as neutrally as he could manage, given the face that was staring back at him. He hadn't quite kicked his suspicious habits just yet and although these two seemed about as dangerous as a two-legged sheep in an ass-whuppin' contest, nothing that stole other people's faces was generally gonna trouble the 'good' column in the Great Ledger of Life.

Sides, neither of these two dumb clucks had clocked that Bobby currently had his trusty pistol in his free hand under the table. Take no chances, that was his motto.

"This isn't a set, is it?"

Jared! That was his name. How in the hell could you forget a name like that? Bobby took another swig of the beer, measuring this fella before he replied. He could detect no malice coming from either of these two, but that wasn't quite enough to set him at ease. There was also still the burning question of: if these two clowns weren't Sam and Dean, then just where the hell _were_ Sam and Dean?

"Not 'less the termites are members of Equity, son."

"And your name isn't Jim Beaver."

Bobby about bust a gut laughing at this. "Beaver?!" he said. "As in _Leave It To_? Shoot, I caught enough of a hard time off the other boys at my elementary class for 'Singer', let alone Beaver."

Jensen sighed theatrically from where he stood. "Do _not_ tell me you're actually swallowing this, Jared," he declared. "What, did'ja catch rabies off those alpacas in your back yard, or what?"

Jared did a fine job of completely ignoring the interruption. Instead, he simply held out his hand across the table. After a moment's thought, Bobby extended his own – the other one, of course, kept right on where it was nicely out of sight.

"Jared Padalecki. Nice to meet you."

"Bobby Singer. Likewise. Now…you mind tellin' me what the hell you two clowns are doing here, how you ended up sprawled in my backyard, and oh yeah – how exactly you're the spitting image of Sam and Dean?"

Jensen threw up his hands. "I've been roofied," he said, mostly to himself. "That's it. That has to be it. That bastard Kripke hit me with one of his happy pills…oh God…" this seemed to sink in, and he began checking his pulse, "…oh God, it's in my system. How long's it stay in your system? They were gonna test my Thetan levels! I was due to meet Tom-"

"Would you-" Bobby began.

"Jensen, sit your ass _down_ and shut up for five minutes!" Jared snapped.

To Bobby's mild surprise, Jensen complied, albeit in the manner of a five-year-old who's been denied ice cream. He looked at Jared with a mite more respect than he had been able to muster – mind, the bar had not been set especially highly.

"This is gonna sound nuts," Jared said, talking to Bobby directly.

"Y'don't say."

"We're not Sam and Dean."

"See above."

"We _play_ Sam and Dean."

"Okay," Bobby admitted, "startin' to lose me a little."

"On a TV show. We…we _act_ as Sam and Dean."

And somewhere, a sixty-watt bulb lit up in Bobby's mind, and the pieces fell into place. He just wished fervently that they hadn't. "Waaaaaaait a minute," he said, looking from Jensen to Jared and back, "is this somethin' to do with those awful books that damnfool sonofabitch _Prophet of the Lord_ Chuck what's-his-name wrote, few years back? What was it? Super…?"

"Natural! Supernatural! Yes!" Jared looked as though he could kiss him. "Yes! That's exactly it!"

"Hi," Jensen said. He was back on the cellphone. "Can I order a cab, please?"

"They made a _TV show_ out of that crap?" Bobby said incredulously. "Since when?"

"I'm not sure where I am, exactly. Can you zero in on my location with your GPS? Probably somewhere outside Vancouver that's been made to look like South Dakota – hello? Hello?"

Wings flapped.

A familiar trenchcoated angel stood in the middle of the kitchen, having popped into existence in full view of Jensen and Jared. Jensen's phone fell out of his nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor.

"They didn't make a TV show," said Castiel. "At least…not in this reality."

Bobby stood up, nice and slow. Oddly, despite everything, he felt a mite happier now that Cas had shown up. Not for the same reasons he would have a while back – Cas wasn't exactly reliable these days, but at least it was _definitely Cas_ , and that meant he could start to get some damn answers.

"Where'd your boy Balthazar send Sam and Dean?" he demanded, the angel blade again resting in his hand.

"Sam and Dean are safe," Cas promised.

"Oh yeah? You'll forgive me if I don't exactly take your word as gospel," Bobby said.

"Misha?" Jensen said, wretchedly. He looked as though he were about to throw up. "Oh God, you're really not Misha, are you. Oh God…"

"Sam and Dean are safe," Cas repeated. "In fact, they are much safer than the three of you."

"Bring them back!" Bobby snarled. "NOW!"

"In good time."

That did it. He took a long step forward, angel blade in hand, ready to swing, ready to wipe that blank expression off of Castiel's face…and something made him stop. He wasn't quite sure what. Later, when he had time to mull it over, Bobby Singer would come to the conclusion that some instinct within him had told him that if he gave in to his urge to take a swing at Cas, the angel would genuinely kill him without giving it too much thought. That scared the hell out of him.

" _In good time_?" Jared spoke up. He stood up too, and though he made no move to attack Cas as Bobby had, he looked as though he were giving it some consideration. "I have a _wife_ back home!"

"Yeah, and a zoo," Jensen pointed out, in a faraway voice. In his muddled state, he was genuinely trying to be helpful. "Those things don't run themselves..."

"What happens when Sam and Dean come back here?" Jared asked, again ignoring Jensen. "We go back home too?"

Cas seemed troubled. "Theoretically," he said after a pause that went on for a fraction too long, "assuming that is, you survive that long."

"Assuming we _what_?" Jensen said.

In a horribly matter-of-fact tone that only angels could pull off, Cas illuminated their plight. "Half the heavenly host and pretty much all of Hell want Sam and Dean Winchester's heads on a plate. Not to mention that Eve currently has every Wendigo, Rugaru, Shifter, Werewolf, Vampire and monster from the Atlantic to the Pacific on alert to kill them on sight. And to them – you look, you sound, you smell like the Winchesters. I'm sorry you've been dragged into this. Truly. I wish I could do more, but all I can do is _this_ -"

Before any of the three men in the room could react, he had reached out and grabbed Jensen and Jared by the shoulder. A white light filled the room, along with the sound of sizzling and the two men hollering in pain. When the light died down, both were on their knees, moaning softly.

"You're hidden from my brothers," Cas said. "Good luck."

Jensen staggered to his feet. His face was ashen. "You b-"

Wings flapped, and Cas was gone.

Looking at these two, a change came over Bobby Singer. Some of those instincts he'd been blocking since he realised all was not what it seemed, he allowed back. Okay, these two doofuses (doofi?) were definitively _not_ Sam and Dean Winchester. But they had just been thrown into the deepest of deep ends, and he remembered what that was like.

"Well, boys," he said, companionably thumping both on the chest (and getting a howl of pain from each for his troubles) "you heard the angel. Hell might be coming a-knocking. And damned if I'm gonna sit around and babysit you two idjits until Sam and Dean come back. Which they will," he added, as much for his own benefit as these two's.

Jensen glowered at him. "Fantastic," he said sarcastically, "so what do you suggest…Bobby?"

He caught the gun Bobby threw in his direction with a grunt of surprise, and almost dropped the damn thing.

"Time for some Method Acting, boys," Bobby grinned.


	3. Can Do

**The following day…**

"So let me get this straight," Bobby said, rubbing his temples with his fingers in a vain bid to massage away the migraine that was squatting and taking a dump there, "you're from Texas…"

"Yeah…" Jared nodded. He couldn't meet Bobby's eyes.

"…you professionally act as a guy who handles a gun almost every week…"

"Uh huh."

Sunlight glinted off the pristine and untouched row of tin cans perched on top of the wooden fence posts no more than twelve feet away.

"…and yet," Bobby said, "you are, in my opinion son, the single worst shot with a gun I have ever seen in my entire damn life."

"Well," Jared said defensively, "I mean…the gun, it got so hot when I fired it!"

"Yeah," Bobby said, in a voice so dry you could have towelled yourself with it, "guns do that."

"Our guns on the show didn't…"

" _Real_ guns get hot."

"Right."

Bobby sighed. "You're actors, for the love of…" he said helplessly, "didn't you, I dunno, didn't you ever shoot your damn TVs or shoot at your personal assistants or something?!"

"I think that was Elvis," Jensen pointed out. "With the TV thing."

"I remember JDM took a pop at his PA one time," Jared said.

"JDM _shot_ Tina?" Jensen exclaimed. "No way? Really?"

"Well when I say 'pop' I kinda mean…verbally."

"Who in the Sam Hill is JBM?!"

"DM. Jeffrey Dean…" Jared caught Bobby's patience circling the drain and his tone dipped noticeably, "…Morgan. He uh, he played uh, John."

Although it stood to reason that if, in their reality, the entire world was a fictional TV show everyone would be 'played' by an actor, Bobby nonetheless felt a pang of something approaching sadness to think of a man like John Winchester, reduced to a role. Course, there was an even bigger and more insanity-inducing elephant in the room, but he very deliberately had not asked about this Beaver asshole and he wasn't planning on it either. That way lay nothing but trouble.

"Your turn," he said instead, and gestured to Jared to give the gun to Jensen.

 _Blam. Blam. Blam._

Three cans went flying.

For a long moment the only sound in the field was the lingering echoes of the gunshots and the distant clamour of birds disturbed.

"What the hell?" Bobby managed.

Jensen shrugged. "Anger Management class," was all he said.

"Godfather probably taught you that…" the muttered comment came from Jared's direction, along with a snicker.

The effect was electric and immediate. "Y'know what, Padalecki?" Jensen exploded. "Why don't you just blow me?"

Jared gestured in a 'bring it on' way. "Shame those Mafia buddies of yours couldn't swing you the Teen Choice award, huh Ackles?"

Jensen's nostrils flared. "You say that, to me? To me?" he declared, and pointed to the weapon he was carrying. Bobby was reminded unavoidably of Tony Montana's meltdown at the end of _Scarface_ , and it was only then that he realised, with dawning horror, that this was deliberate. The stupid son of a bitch was actually _acting_. "With a gun in my hand, you say that to me?"

The two men took a step toward one another – and got no further, for there was a _very_ pissed-off middle-aged Hunter suddenly between them.

"You two morons listen to me," Bobby Singer hissed, "all damn morning I been listenin' to you two a-holes do nothin' but bitch and snipe at one another. Y'know something, Dean and Sam had issues with one another, God knows they did, but they had the weight of the damn _world_ on their shoulders! You two idjits, far as I can tell, got paid a damn fortune for _pretendin'_ to be heroes! You ain't fit to lace the boots of Dean or Sam, either one o'ya! Now sack up or shut up, preferably both!"

With that, he walked off in despair, leaving Jensen and Jared alone.

"That," said Jensen, "was…brilliant."

"Oh, wasn't it?" Jared agreed. "He sold it so well."

"Masterclass. Genuinely. Classic Bobby Singer speechifying. He's even better than Jim."

"He is. Which I guess kinda makes sense. Y'know. Considering."

They trailed off. One of them coughed to fill the silence.

"He also has kind of a point," Jared spoke up. "We-"

"Hold up," Jensen interrupted him. "If we're gonna do a heart-to-heart, I think I'd feel more comfortable…" and he indicated to the left.

"Of course," Jared nodded. "You're right."

The two men walked a short distance to the Impala. Both of them sat on the hood. Jensen wiggled his butt a little to get comfortable.

"Okay?" Jared asked.

"Yeah. Much better. You were saying?"

"I was saying he has a point. We need to get over…" Jared sighed, "…us. Until we get out of this crazy, whatever-this-is that's happened, anyway."

"Cards on the table?" Jensen asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Sure."

"I don't like you very much, Jared."

Jared snorted derisively. "Really? Cos you hide it _so_ well."

"Yeah, well. It's called _acting._ Try it sometime," and off Jared's look which suggested trouble was about to flare up again, he held up a hand in apology. "Look, okay, okay. I'll level with you. I'm scared, man. Like, out of my mind scared. I don't mind admittin' it either."

Jared stared off into the distance. "Worried Dean's ruining your career?" he said.

"Worried I'll never see my wife again," Jensen said, quietly.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting from his co-star upon hearing this soul-bearing confession, but it wasn't the laughter that ensued. Any anger he may have felt, however, was quickly deflated when he realised that Jared's laughter was hollow. "Yeah, well, at least _your_ wife didn't play a Big Bad recently on the damn show, Jensen," Jared said, anxiety dripping off every word. "By now our beloved two lunkheads have probably put two and two together and come up with six, "ganked" Genevieve, stuck a blade in Mark Pellegrino and God knows who else. I am going out of my mind thinking about it."

"None of this should be possible," Jensen said helplessly. "I mean…if something as certifiably bat-guano crazy as this can happen to _us_ …real people, you know, where does it end? If we can be pulled here, to Sam and Dean's world…this world, it's horrible. Monsters and demons and the Apocalypse? I can't live in a world like that, Jared. What sane person could?"

Jared closed his eyes. "I guess," he said, as slowly and calmly as he could, "we just have to hope that if – _when_ – Sam and Dean come back here, we'll get switched back too. I mean, it stands to reason, right?"

"So what?" Jensen hopped off the car hood, walking in circles, shaking his head fervently. "What are you proposing? We sit around here with our thumbs up our asses, shooting at cans and waiting on two fictional characters to save our hides? Uh-uh. Not gonna cut it."

Jared gave him an appraising look. "This doesn't sound like you," he said. "I mean, no offence Jensen…" and he paused, "…well, actually, hell with it, take all the offence you want: you're a spoiled selfish immature primadonna theatrical whiny self-entitled narcissistic man-child. But just then, you kinda sounded like…"

"Dean."

"Yeah."

On a hunch, Jensen examined his hand. "Son of a bitch," he breathed. "This hand…the glass was clean through. It bled like a stuck pig."

"So?" Jared said.

"So look at it now."

The hand was unmarked. Not a hint of a scar where the glass had penetrated only the night before.

"A two-inch shard of glass doesn't come out of your hand and heal that fast."

Jared nodded his head. "Yeah, you're right," he said. He smiled. "Well, unless it was like the injuries Sam and Dean had on the…"

The two men looked at each other.

"…show," they completed in unison.

Jensen was on a roll now. "On the show," he said, "Sam and Dean would get stabbed, shot, beaten up, burned, mutilated, tortured…and they'd still be back behind the wheel of the Impala by the next week, ready to go. None the worse. Well…except that time you busted your arm, you putz."

"Right!" Jared exclaimed excitedly. "But don't you see, that was _me_ who busted my arm in _our_ world. And it took Sam like, what? Five or six episodes to heal? So if Jared Padalecki or Jensen Ackles get hurt, Sam and Dean take a normal amount of time to recover. But Sam and Dean get shot out of a cannon…they walk it off."

"Magic of TV."

"Magic of TV," Jared agreed.

Jensen's eyes went wide as saucers as another realisation dawned on him. "Aw, _crap_ ," he said.


	4. Enter Crowley, With A Wager

**Bobby Singer's house, shortly thereafter**

"Sam and Dean," Jensen told Bobby Singer, without preamble, "aren't coming back."

Bobby's eyes flashed. "I don't suppose you could say that into my good ear?" he growled.

"No, listen to me," Jensen went on, spreading his hands placatingly, "you think they're gonna find some…some spell or something to reverse this, right?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Bobby nodded.

"Well, see, that's the trouble right there. It _would_."

Even Jared looked confused now. "What are you talking about?"

"Our world!" Jensen exclaimed, looking at the other two men in despair and disbelief that they weren't getting it. "In our world – where we come from – magic doesn't _exist_ , don't you get it? Any spell, any magic crap they try is gonna fizzle like a wet firework. This reality has magic – it has monsters and Rugarus and all manner of awful, but where me and him come from? All just make-believe. All just TV shows and Kardashians and believe me, not one single drop of magic to be found."

"Oh, we got Kardashians too," Bobby said, "least, for another few years anyhow. Then," and his eyes glinted with a terrible satisfaction, "the Hellhounds are comin' for them…"

Despite his earlier anxiety, Jensen seemed fascinated by this. "Say, does Tom Cruise exist in this w-"

"So even if Castiel tries to pull Sam and Dean back," Jared cut in, "it might not be enough?"

Jensen shrugged. "I don't know. You wanna try calling that trenchcoated douchenozzle back so we can ask him? Y'know something, seeing that guy makes me glad we pulled every one of those damn pranks on Misha."

"Like the one with the pennies in his trailer…" Jared chuckled.

"Or that time you stuck the fish in his rental car. That was cold, man."

Both men became aware of Bobby Singer's eyes upon them. The air of nostalgia abated under that withering gaze. "And just when did you two become such experts?" Bobby said. "Last night you two were like babes in the wood, and now you're suddenly an authority on how magic works in different realities?"

Jensen bristled. "Hey, see how quickly _you_ adjust when you find yourself in an alternate dimension," he snapped at Bobby. "Besides, Jared and I are the stars of the show. We're sort of a big deal. We even get script approval."

"Script approval?" Bobby echoed. "What in blazes does that even mean?"

"Well," Jared explained, "when the writers want to do a particular storyline, they have to check it with us to make sure we're OK with it. We care a lot about this show and these characters, you know. So because of that access, we know things."

Both men were unaware that every time they used words like _show_ , a vein the size of the Danube was beginning to thud angrily on the side of Bobby Singer's neck. "Is that so?" he said softly. "What kind of things?"

Jared and Jensen both mulled this over for a moment.

Jensen snapped his fingers triumphantly. "Oh! Oh!" he said. "Like that Crowley isn't really dead!"

"That's right!" Jared agreed. "We bumped into Mark Sheppard at Wondercon last month – he's such a sweetheart, by the way…"

"Oh he is," Jensen nodded sincerely, "he's delightful."

 _Thud, thud, thud_ , went the Danube-vein. _Thud, thud, thud._

"So Mark was all 'oh did you guys know all along Castiel and I were in on this whole grabbing the souls of Purgatory thing?' and I was like 'nononono Mark, honestly I think the Season 6 renewal kinda caught everyone off guard, so the writers are just making it up as they-'"

 _Thud, thud, thud._

"WAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE!" Bobby roared. "You expect me to believe that _Castiel_ – the only angel who rebelled against the Apocalypse, is in some sorta conspiracy with a slimebag demon like Crowley to what, hoover up millions of monster souls?"

"Well…" Jensen blinked, "…yeah, we do."

"Well, I don't," Bobby shot back.

"So call our bluff," Jared suggested.

"And how do you suggest I do that?"

"Summon him. Crowley. You know the spell, right? You…" Jared snapped his fingers, "you performed the summoning spell in episode 4, didn't you? _Weekend At Bobby's_? Isn't that the one you directed, Jensen?"

Jensen fairly inflated with pride. "Well," he said with trowelled-on modesty, "if by 'directed' you mean 'knocked out of the park', I think you could say-"

The Danube finally burst.

Bobby Singer crossed the distance between himself and the two men in a heartbeat; quicker than he'd moved in years, in fact. He grabbed each man by the scruff of the neck and before either could react, he had them against the nearest surface, until his face was inches from theirs and they could see the rage in his eyes.

"Stop talkin' about damn _seasons_ and _episodes_! You're talkin' about my LIFE here, do you understand that, either one o'ya?" he roared. "My hard, tragic as all hell life where the woman I loved became a monster and I had to put a _bullet_ in her head! My life where I stabbed myself in the spine and spent a year in a wheelchair contemplatin' the best ways of killin' myself! So if you're right about all this bein' nothin' more than the whims of some hack TV writers, then you better hope to hell that I _never_ meet any of 'em, you get me?"

With that, he released them. A heavy silence hung in the air. Both men looked as though they wanted to respond, but were at a loss for what to say. After a few seconds of waiting, Bobby snarled in contempt and walked out of the room, leaving them alone.

 **Later that day…**

They'd tried. Bobby had to admit that. Since his outburst in the kitchen, the two idjits masquerading as Sam and Dean had actually tried to be helpful. There had been no more reminders of how fictional they all found this, only offers of assistance and sidelong apologetic glances. It was enough to remind him of the real deal – God knows those two could be morons enough when they put their minds to it.

He hoped they were OK, wherever they were. Even – he shivered – if it _was_ Canada.

The last ingredient for the summoning spell was thrown into the mix. Bobby cast a readying glance at his companions, and went through the Latin incantations. By all rights, this shouldn't work; Crowley had burned up to a cinder, so a summoning spell for him should get the demonic equivalent of a dial tone-

There was a puff of light, a smell of sulphur, and-

"Well," said Crowley, standing smack dab in the middle of the room, wearing a bloodied apron and holding a pair of long metal tongs with _something_ dripping off them, "this is awkward."

 _I'll be damned. They were right._ Bobby felt his stomach lurch with the implications. He was angry enough at those two for treating his world like some fictional construct, but dammit, everything they'd said had panned out, including this.

"Little early for this particular plot twist, aren't we?" Crowley went on breezily, as though he hadn't a care in the world.

"You son of a bitch," Bobby snarled.

"Bobby," Crowley nodded his head, "a pleasure as always. I'd shake your hand but I appear to still be holding a Rugaru's kidney. Now, I should probably get back to work…"

It was then that he seemed to properly look around him for the first time, and notice that it wasn't just Bobby in the room. The self-styled "King of Hell" pursed his lips, snapped his fingers, and the bloodied apron was gone, replaced by his usual taste in immaculate black suits. He approached Jensen and Jared slowly, without any obvious signs of malice. In fact, he looked more like a dog investigating a potentially juicy bone.

"Uh…hey," Jensen said, a trifle nervously.

Crowley took a step or two backward to take in the two men before him. "Incredible," he said. "You look like Moose and Squirrel. You sound like them. You even smell like them. But you're not, are you?"

"Shouldn't he be trapped in the Devil's Trap?" Bobby said, with mounting anger once more. "You know, the one you two a-holes volunteered to take care of?"

Crowley looked up at the ceiling with an air of interest. He pointed. "There's your trouble," he said, with the tone of a workman pointing out exactly where your pipes had burst, "in the corner there, looks like someone's doodled a pair of tits instead of doing the Latin swirly bit properly. Very sloppy workmanship."

Bobby launched himself at Crowley, and was swatted aside effortlessly by the demon's telekinetic abilities with all the apparent effort of a fly getting trampled on by a boot. Flattened to the wall, all he could do was glare.

"Something I said?" Crowley inquired.

"Let him go!" Jared spoke up. It wasn't so much a command as a plead, and the weak tone didn't go unnoticed.

"No, I don't think so," Crowley replied. "The soul's rather gone out of our relationship. Sad, really. Now, if it were _Sam Winchester_ asking me that – the same Sam Winchester who took out Lilith, who fought off Lucifer long enough to do a Triple Lutze into Hell – well, then I might have pause for thought. But it's not Sam Winchester asking, is it...Jared?

Of all the things Bobby Singer had thought to hear spilling from the demon's mouth, that was by far the least likely and the most horrifying.

"How do you know-?" Jared began.

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Indulge me a moment. You're the King of the Crossroads demons, future King of Hell if you please, and one day you discover through the cosmic grapevine that out there in the ether exists a plane of existence where all the pertinent, juicy information about how the future's gonna shake down right here on my particular home sweet plane is just lying around. Not hidden in scrolls or tablets that are written in obscure languages and need codexes for their codexes to be translated. Not cloaked in spells linked to dark and dangerous magics with terrible consequences for those who meddle with such primal forces. No no no. Available on sodding DVD and Blu-ray, no less! And you seriously think I'm gonna _ignore_ that?"

Jensen looked like he was going to faint. "Are you saying you _knew_ about…where we came from…all along?" he said.

"Please, darling," Crowley replied, "I'm hashtag #SPNfamily all the way. I'm a bit insulted I didn't show up until season 5, though. Oh come _on_ , lads. Who'dja think you're talking to? Where d'you think that wanker Balthazar got the idea for where to throw Morecambe and Wise in the bloody first place?"

Jared sat down, heavily. He was pale. "You?"

"Me."

"Wait a minute," Jensen said, "if you know about our…dimension, our whatever, if you've been getting information from there, you must have a way to travel there and back, right?"

Crowley shrugged. "It's a fair deduction. You're a smart lad, Jensen. Smarter than Dean, anyway. Although that's like saying you're better at Twister than Stephen Hawking."

"You can send us back!" Jensen went on.

Crowley frowned. "And why would I do that?" he asked.

Jensen looked taken aback at this. He glanced at Jared for help. Jared shrugged.

"We don't belong here!" Jensen said. "Any more than Sam and Dean belong in our world!"

Crowley laughed at this, as genuine a laugh as Bobby had ever heard from him. "Oh this is priceless," he giggled delightedly, "are you telling me that those two dingbats are currently running amok in your dimension? Ten'll get you one that the body count's already piling up. Those two could start a bloodbath on _Sesame Street_."

"Alright," Jensen said quietly. "What do you want, Crowley?"

Bobby, until now stunned from the impact against the wall, found his voice again. "Don't be a damn fool, son," he managed weakly.

Crowley smiled a razorblade's edge of a smile. "Now you're talkin' my language," he said.

"I won't let you do-" Bobby began, trying to break free.

"Quiet on the set!" Crowley snapped, and gestured. Bobby slumped down the wall, breathing but unconscious. "Now…you were saying?"

"So how's this work? Just like on the show?" Jensen said nervously. "You…you want our souls or something? Is that it?"

Crowley considered this. "As interesting a metaphysical conundrum as that would be," he said eventually, "I'm gonna have to pass. Souls from your dimension have a sort of strange, metallic aftertaste anyway. Incompatible with our systems, you might say. Besides," he added cheerfully, "Mr Ackles here is already stones-deep in hock to some rather sinister Sicilian gentlemen, so I'm not even sure your soul is yours to give away, is it?"

Jensen laughed dismissively at this. It was not one of his greater performances. "You're crazy," he said. "He's crazy."

"Uh huh," Jared said, in a tone that suggested Crowley was not crazy.

"Oh come on, I only say that Mafia stuff for kicks," Jensen protested. "It's all exaggerated. I've had some business dealings with an Italian consortium that has ties to overseas holdings."

Crowley snorted. "Yeah, holdings people underwater."

Jensen cleared his throat. "So if not souls, then what?" he said, not changing the subject at all.

"Tell you what," Crowley offered, "rather than the usual boring old contract and kiss in exchange for ten years and all that old bollocks, let's mix things up a little. I'm the Devil in these here parts, and traditionally I'm meant to be a sucker for a wager. So I'll make you two a little bet. You win, I facilitate the swap between you two and your Vulcan goatee-sporting counterparts. You lose...and all four of you stay right where you are, forever. Sam and Dean get the salaries and the trailers, and you get the shapeshifters and the Lamias. Peachy?"

"Deal."

" _Deal?_ " Jared choked.

"Better idea?" Jensen asked him.

Jared opened and closed his mouth. "I…no, I guess not," he admitted.

"What's the bet?" Jensen asked.

"Oh, it's simple," Crowley purred. "Sam and Dean are presumably having to pass themselves off as you two. And I bet it's going _juuuuust_ swimmingly. I want you two triple-threat sophisticated Hollywood actor types to prove you can do better than those two backwoods Bigfoot lookalike competition winning simpletons. So the deal runs thusly: I give you a list of ingredients for the dimensional transference spell, and you two go pretend to be Godzilla and Godzooky and go get them. _If_ you play your Sam and Dean roles convincingly – and allow to me to stress for the purposes of fair play, _convincingly_ \- you win. I mean, how hard can it be, right? You play those two Neanderthals eighteen hours a day, six days a week, forty weeks a year. What's a day or two more?"

"That's it?" Jensen asked. "We just go get some ingredients and pretend to be Sam and Dean while we do it?"

"That's it."

"Deal!"

"Hold on a minute!" Jared protested, looking at Jensen warningly. "Have you forgotten the lives these two lead? The dangers out there? You seriously want to go running into that?"

"Come on, man," Jensen pointed out, "he's right: we're the experts. Plus everyone already believes we're them anyway. This'll be easy. And we've got Bobby!"

"Aha," Crowley held up a finger and coughed. "Actually, no. A few little preconditions to keep this interesting: _strictly_ no praying for help to Trenchcoat and Interesting, Captain Beardface stays here unconscious and hog-tied til you come back – don't worry, I've put a little something in his drink so to speak, he won't die of hunger or thirst, he won't even come to – _and_ you agree to me wiping his mind of this whole incident afterward. After all…" and he grinned, "…spoilers, sweetie."

With the safety net of Bobby and Cas removed, suddenly this mission seemed a little more daunting than before. Jensen hesitated.

"Limited time offer," Crowley said, in a bored tone of voice, tapping an imaginary watch. "Course you're welcome to rely on Moose and Squirrel using magic in a place where magic is impossible…"

Jensen and Jared looked at one another. They nodded in unison.

"Let's do this," Jensen said.

"Splendid," Crowley said. "Then as they say in the biz: Lights, Camera, Action…"


	5. Driver Picks The Tunes

**Next day – the open road**

Betsy Fortnoy had never been above 45mph in her whole life. Each Sunday, at 10am, she would leave her little bungalow and drive the twenty-three miles to the neighbouring town to attend the yard sales they held there. She did this in her '98 Fiat Multipla, which shook and rattled and made her teeth ache. The car hadn't gotten to fourth gear since Bill Clinton ruined Monica's dress.

"Move!" Betsy cried, mashing the horn. " _Move_ , for the love o'Pete!"

The car ahead stubbornly refused to accelerate. Finally, about four miles later, Betsy was able to get the mile or so she needed to coax the Multipla to actually overtake another vehicle, which it did with the air of a fourteen-year-old dog trying to jump up on a couch.

" _Asshole_!" she screamed as she passed.

Behind the wheel of the Impala, Jensen watched her pull away from them and settle back into her lane. He shook his head sadly. "What was her problem?" he asked. "And what is that damn rattle?"

Jared didn't look up from the map he was studying. "I think the car wants to go faster," he said absently.

"We're going plenty fast."

Jared snorted. "Disco just overtook us."

"What is the obsession with speed everyone has now?" Jensen asked rhetorically. The Impala seemed to rattle an angry response. The two men glanced at each other uneasily. The show had always intimated that the car was the third lead character, but so far as they knew, that was as far as it had gone. Then again, up until recently neither man had ever found themselves in a fictional universe…

"Maybe put on some tunes. That'll quiet her down?"

"Good idea," Jensen muttered. He reached for the radio.

" _GET YO' MOTOR RUNNIN'…HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY…LOOKIN' FOR ADVENTURE…_ " the radio instantly leapt into life.

"Ick," Jensen made a face. "I hate that mullet rock crap."

He twisted the dial.

" _THE ACE OF SPADES! THE ACE OF SPADES!_ "

He twisted the dial again.

" _HERE I AM! ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!_ "

Another twist.

" _I CAN'T DRIVE, 55…_ "

"Oh come _on_ ," Jensen said.

"What are you looking for?" Jared asked.

"I don't know, a little Adele. Maybe some Coldplay?"

The Impala spluttered and chugged below them, kangaroo-jumping like the car was running on fumes. A glance at the dial was all it took to reassure both men that, yes, the car was full of gas. Jared cleared his throat. "Y'know," he said, "Crowley did say he wanted us to be _convincing_ , Jensen."

"Yeah, and as soon as we got an audience, you watch me go," Jensen shot back, still searching fruitlessly through the frequencies. "In the meantime, I wanna get my Ariana Grande on."

"See that's it. I've been thinking. I think we _do_ have an audience."

"What, that crazy old bird driving the lemon?"

"No!" Jared slapped the dashboard, half in frustration and half to illustrate what he meant.

"The car?" Jensen said, looking at Jared like he was certifiable. "You think Crowley meant we have to convince the damn _car_?"

"Maybe," Jared shrugged, "but think about it: Sam and Dean never saw cameras and sound technicians and all the stuff we associated with the set, did they? Not in this world. Everything to them was real."

"So?"

"So maybe we're being filmed right now. We just can't see it. And if that's the case, maybe it's not just the Impala we have to convince. Maybe it's the…" and Jared waved a hand, "…the audience, I guess."

Jensen considered this. "If that's so, why didn't Crowley say any of that?"

"Because he's Crowley! He's a sneaky little Limey bastard trying to trip us up! I don't know, Jensen, it's just a damn theory! But do you really want to take the chance?"

Jensen sighed. He twisted the dial again. Mullet rock filled the car. The Impala leapt forward on the road.

"Yeah, nice touch speeding up," Jared nodded. "Much more in character."

"Uh…that…uh, that wasn't me," Jensen said, his eyes wide. He patted the dashboard experimentally, as if stroking a pet dog he wasn't completely sure wouldn't suddenly bite a few fingers off.

"I think we take the next turnoff," Jared announced eventually, folding the map in half and examining it like a gold prospector would turn over a nugget.

"You _think_?"

"Hey, I spend like two months a year in America. Gimme a break, would you?"

They took the next turnoff. The car was now hovering at a respectable 52mph; all of the bumps and clatters from the engine had now settled into a dull roar that, if you were feeling particularly silly, you might have said almost sounded like the contented purr of a cat.

There was an impressive amount of silence. It wasn't comfortable-being-silent-with-each-other silence, too. It was oppressive, every-tick-of-the-clock silence. The roads were so straight that barely any steering was required, so Jensen had almost as much free time as his passenger. There was a lot of clearing of throats.

"This is weird, huh," Jensen said eventually.

"Yeah."

"Being out on location like this…without about thirty crew members wandering around doing…" he shrugged, "…whatever it is most of their little jobs were. Y'know something?" he added quickly, suddenly feeling the urge to confess.

"What?"

"When we walked to the car, when we were about set off, I was looking down at my feet as I did and I couldn't think why and then I realised."

"The mark," Jared said. A tiny mark, sometimes a literal 'X', was usually placed on the set or piece of ground where the director and crew had figured out the best lighting conditions and angles for cameras existed. Part of the actor's job was to walk to the mark and stop directly on it without making it obvious they were doing so.

"Right. I was looking for my mark and I couldn't see it and it felt…weird, man. I didn't even know that's what I was looking for until it dawned on me. Then I felt like an idiot."

"I still don't think you get it," Jared said. "We're not _on location_ , Jensen. We're actually _here_. This isn't some episode of the show where we ask have we any leads on the Big Bad, no we got bupkis, oh well I'm going crazy staring at these walls, let's work a case, hey I got something, hmm could just be a suicide, oh well let's check it out, driving scene, turns out to be a case after all, case turns out to have some thematic crossover with our seasonal arc, we gank the monster, sit on the hood and lie to each other about some big secret that won't be revealed until Sweeps or May, roll credits. We're not dealing with actors here. When we saw Castiel at Bobby's, that was an actual friggin' _Angel of the Lord_ , man, not Misha Collins doing his best Christian Bale Batman voice. We can't try to make Castiel corpse on camera by fondling his balls out of shot. We are in this. We are in this up to our asses, do you understand that?"

"Alright, Jeez, I get it, I get it!" Jensen snapped. He was way more annoyed than he should have been, which only told Jared one thing: he knew he was right.

Then, something unexpected happened. Jensen chuckled, just for a moment.

"What?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"Obviously something amused you."

"Well, I just…" Jensen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, "I dunno, I just thought, when Castiel or whoever appeared at Bobby's, were you tempted to…?"

"Let me get this straight. Are you asking if I was tempted to fondle an angel's balls?"

"No!" Jensen protested. He paused. "Okay, kinda."

"Well, no," Jared responded. He paused. "Okay, a little."

Both men laughed. The moment was gone as quickly as it had arrived, though, and the silence when it descended hit even harder than it had before.

"What happened to us?" Jensen said.

Jared had been waiting for this. He took a deep breath and let go. "Before or after you became a massive dick? Before or after you started negotiating your own convention appearance fees separately from mine? Before or after you threatened to walk unless the network reversed the order of our names on the opening credits? Before or after you tried to tell Genevieve that I had gonorrhoea and that when I did the Young McGuyver pilot I'd done so many mushrooms that the real reason the show never went to series is that I'd been fired for taking a dump in Ron Canada's shoes?"

Jensen chuckled to himself. "Ron Canada's shoes. That one was my favourite."

"Go screw yourself, Ackles."

"Oh come on, man. My agent at the time, he did the convention fee thing. When I found out I hired another guy to fire that asshat. Scout's honour. The _next_ agent was the one pressured the network on the order of the names thing."

"So you fired him too?"

"Her. And no. Didn't have to," Jensen said bitterly, "JDM stole her right out from under me. One whiff of _Watchmen_ and she was up his smiley badge like a rat up a drainpipe."

"Dick," Jared said, with genuine sympathy.

"I know, right?"

Jared seemed slightly mollified by this. "And the gonorrhoea and the doing mushrooms thing?" he asked. "Those your agent too?"

There was an awkward silence.

"You know," Jensen said eventually, as Cinderella reverberated through the Impala, "this mullet rock kinda grows on ya…"


	6. Can We Go Again?

**Outside "The Shoppe Of Magick", three hours later**

"This is it," Jared said. He moved to open the passenger side door.

"Wait wait wait wait," Jensen grabbed him back. He indicated his "Civilian Dean" outfit and Jared's equivalent outfit. "We're just going in? Like this?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, shouldn't we be in disguise or something?"

Jared frowned. He held up a scrap of paper. "Jensen," he said patiently, "we're shopping. Not convincing some stereotypically hick Sheriff to give us access to a crime scene or some unfeasibly hot pathologist to let us help her with an autopsy. We're in there to buy this…" he waved the piece of paper, "crap, then we're done."

Jensen made a face.

"What?" Jared asked, losing patience.

"It's just…that's it? That's the episode? Sam and Dean go shopping for a spell, The End?"

"It's Season Six. Who even cares?"

The Impala chose that moment to emit another unexplainable noise from underneath its hood. Jensen gave Jared a triumphant look.

Jared sighed.

 **Inside "The Shoppe of Magick", five minutes later**

Benjamin Latour could recall exactly when his enthusiasm for the whole magical supplies business had waned.

In college, as he'd smoked up a storm and spent most of his time more baked than Mary Berry's brunch menu, he'd hit upon the wondrous notion of opening his own magic shop. It would be a good cover for importing a shit-ton of ingredients for some truly epic mind-altering substances, it was mysterious (and chicks dug mysterious) and he'd probably find himself dealing primarily with harmless hippies and hipsters instead of the huge sweaty-toed women that had populated his teenage years as he'd helped his Dad out with his shoe shop on Main Street.

And then, about three months after The Shoppe of Magick had opened, and was doing fairly decent business in much the way he had imagined, some bemulleted asshat had walked in and asked him did he stock dead man's blood.

In short order, Ben had discovered to his horror that magic was real, monsters were real, and worst of all, mankind's primary defence against the things that went bump in the night seemed to be the crowd scene in the background of every episode of _Dukes of Hazzard_.

 _Ding ding ding_.

He remembered the days when the bell above his door had been a whimsical addition. Nowadays, it heralded a closed fist of dread in his stomach. Reaching under the counter for the silver-tipped, holy-water coated machete he kept there, he took in the sight of the two rather large gentlemen entering the shop, each clad in a smart suit and tie combo.

"Hey," he offered, keeping his tone as nonchalant and bored as possible. Some of the monsters left you alone if you did the same. He'd learned that, too.

Jared and Jensen exchanged a look. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak. Ben watched as the big one motioned frantically to the smaller one.

"Mime artist supply shop's across the street, guys," he said. "Doing a special this week on big panes of glass. Everything comes box-wrapped free too."

The little one laughed, a little too loudly and for too long. The bigger one joined in. "Regular comedian here! Er. Okay. Let's do this," said the smaller one, and he took a deep breath. As Ben watched, his fingers tightening around the blade, the man's facial expression changed, grew intently serious. He squared his shoulders, stood straighter, seemed to grow half an inch. When he spoke, his voice was about three octaves lower.

"Ben, right? Got your address from Bobby Singer. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam."

With his free hand, Ben took a bite out of the sandwich he'd been chewing on when these two entered. His eyes never left Dean, who was now standing there looking expectantly at Sam. As though his eyes were on wheels, Ben slowly dragged his gaze over to the really tall one. It was obvious he was trying to undergo the same physical transformation as Dean, but he seemed to be having difficulty. Either that, or he was really, really constipated.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is Dean."

"Oh for God's sake!" Dean exploded. "He _knows_ that! I already did that bit!"

Sam closed his eyes and grimaced in embarrassment. "Right, right. Sorry, sorry. Okay. Um. Can we go again?"

"Let's go again," Dean agreed.

Watching all of this, saying nothing, Ben kept right on chewing his sandwich.

Dean went through the same physical tics as before. _Exactly_ the same, in fact; the squaring shoulders, the standing straighter, the slight disapproving frown. "Ben, right?" he said. "Got your address from Bobby Singer. I'm Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam."

As before, Ben's eyes moved to Sam, who was nodding intently, as though he were watching a Presidential debate. "Good to meet you," Sam intoned. He looked at Dean with a 'how was that?' expression, and got a thumbs-up in response. Sam grinned.

"We have-" and Dean coughed suddenly, holding up a hand, "-I'm sorry, I got something in my throat there, a little dust or something. It's fine, it's fine. Okay, let's try that again?"

"Sure," Sam nodded.

"We have a list of ingredients for a spell that uh…" he floundered for a second, "…it's a spell that we need to cast to…" and suddenly, inspiration seemed to strike and he fixed Ben with one of the most heroic expressions Ben had ever seen, "put some evil sons-o'-bitches _in the ground_."

"Oh, that's great!" Sam said admiringly.

"So what do you-" Dean was going on, but he got no further, because the holy water tossed by Ben hit him square in the face at that moment. Sam got the same treatment a heartbeat later; though he had time to prepare, he seemed resigned to just standing there and letting it wash over him.

"We're not-" Sam began, and then he too stopped because he'd just caught an object Ben had lobbed in his direction. "Silver locket?" Sam guessed, turning it over in his hands. He saw Dean was now holding something similar.

"Hmm. Not vampires, or werewolves, or ghouls, or possessed…just the drugs then, huh? Well," Ben grunted, "who am I to judge? Whatever gets you Hunters through the day, right?"

Dean was standing there, dripping wet. "Towel?" he said.

Ben looked left and right at the otherwise empty shop. "See anyone standing around with one?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer he snatched the list off Dean's still-outstretched hand. "Hmm. I can help you with most of this. Can't help you with the powdered vampire fang, though. One of your charming Hunter _amigos_ cleaned me out of my stock two days ago for some ritual, and I won't get more for a couple weeks."

"Anywhere else in town we might be able to grab some?" Sam asked.

Ben narrowed his eyes. "Are there any other magical supply shops in Harrisburg, South Dakota, population 4,000?" he intoned robotically. "Oh yeah, _tons_! There's The Magic Box over on 5th. Then there's Demons, Demons, Demons on Madison and Culver. And of course you got Wiz-E-Mart outside town but they're _real_ impersonal."

Sam was fishing out a notebook from an inside pocket. "Okay whoa, slow down. What was the middle one?"

For a long moment Ben simply stared at him. "I lied," he said, as though talking to a moron. "None of those stores exist. Now, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to sell you what I can for a frankly criminal mark-up because I find you both _intensely_ irritating. Then you're going to leave my store and ask Bobby Singer to lose my number. I mean, I'd heard of you guys: The Winchesters, the guys who stopped the Apocalypse. The hell happened to you?"

"Long drive," Sam offered.

As Ben started to bag up the ingredients on the list, Jared escorted Jensen safely out of earshot. "Worst. Audition. Ever."

"I know," Jensen hissed. "You'd think with a hundred and change episodes behind me I could improvise some damn dialogue. Think we could persuade Balthazar and Crowley to send us a writer?"

"No I don't," Jared replied, "and that's not our biggest problem. We need fresh vampire fang and we need it fast. Where the hell are we gonna find it?"

"On a vampire?"

Jared looked at him as though he had lost his mind. "An _actual live vampire_?" he echoed. "What do you suggest we do when we find one, Jensen? Act it to death? And how are we gonna locate one anyway?"

Jensen indicated the shopkeeper. "Maybe Comic Book Guy over there knows."

Jared snorted. "Well, I don't think he likes us very much."

"Oh yeah?" Jensen replied. "Well, you know something? Dean Winchester doesn't care."

He did the transformation thing again that he'd done shortly after they'd walked into the shop, but this time it was subtly different; this time it seemed entirely effortless, as though he'd suddenly slipped on the world's most comfortable pair of shoes.

As Jared watched, Dean Winchester strode across the shop and grabbed the luckless shopkeeper by the scruff of the neck, pressing him backward against the nearest hard surface.

"Listen to me, chuckles," Dean said, "my little brother and I got hit pretty hard by a Djinn's whammy yesterday before we ganked the sonuvabitch. We're still shaking it off. Y'know, when we Hunters are out saving civilians asses – civilians like _you_ – it can take a toll. You get that, right? Smart guy like you?"

"I-I-I get that," Ben nodded frantically.

"So here's how it's gonna go, my man. We're gonna enjoy a significant discount on these supplies, and you're gonna point us in the direction of the nearest vamp nest so we can go clean house on those pointy-toothed scumbags and go on making the world a safer place for small businessmen like yourself. Frosty?"

Ben looked as though he were about to pass out. "I-I don't know anything about any nest. But a few days ago a guy turned up dead in the park. Had all the hallmarks of a vamp attack. Maybe ask the local sheriff, pull off some of that pretend FBI stuff you Hunters do?"

Dean let the smaller man go, slowly and deliberately. He picked up the bag of supplies Ben had dropped on the counter, tossed a few cursory dollar bills in his direction, nodded to Sam, and both men walked out of the shop with a palpable swagger. Just before they were due to exit, Dean turned to Ben.

"Pretending," he said, "is our speciality."

 _Ding ding ding_. The door closed.

"Dick," Ben muttered, as he turned away from the window to fix himself a nice calming smoke.

Had he turned at that exact moment, he would have witnessed the rather strange sight of two men in suits jumping up and down outside his shop whilst high-fiving each other.


	7. The Revenge Of Thomas Kincaid

**Harrisburg Sheriff's Office, 30 mins later**

It wasn't often that people walked through the doors of the station as happily as Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki did late that afternoon, but after the performance at the supplies shop, hell if they weren't both on Cloud Nine.

"Did you see his _face_?!" Jensen bubbled. "I honestly thought he was gonna have a heart attack when I grabbed him. Which, _ouch_ by the way. Kinda hurt my thumb. Totally worth it though."

"You were great," Jared said, and was surprised to find he genuinely meant it. "Honestly. Pure Dean all the way."

"You know what's kinda weird?" Jensen said suddenly, as a thought occurred to him. "We drove the whole way over here from the shop, took like a half hour, and we waited until we walked through the doors before we freaked out and started talking about it. I mean, logically, you'd think we'd have said all this on our way to the Impala or something."

Jared considered this. "Maybe it's because that's how the show works?" he said, and off Jensen's puzzled look, he explained. "Think about it. How many times do we see Sam and Dean discover something in one place, drive across town to the next location, and _then_ start discussing it?"

"So why are _we_ doing it?"

Jared shrugged. "Their world, their rules, I guess?

"That's comforting," Jensen muttered darkly. He took a look at the front desk, where a female officer was beginning to eye him suspiciously. Inhaling sharply, he set his shoulders and began to walk over-

"Wait."

"Huh?"

"Let me do this one," Jared begged.

Jensen blinked. His mouth opened and closed. "Uh," he said. "You, uh, you sure?"

"Yeah. C'mon. It's no different to the store, right?"

Jensen looked at the front desk, and at Jared, and back again. "I don't know, man," he said, a kindly tone in his voice. "I mean, it's a _little_ different, right? Back there I was just putting on a deep voice and grabbing some poor sap by his collar. This is…this is pretending to be federal officers. This is a felony, right here, acting or no acting."

"But that's just it!" Jared said triumphantly. "This isn't shooting at cans or fighting vamps or casting spells. This is _acting_. All I have to do is go over there and act!"

There was a pause.

"Yeahhhhhhhh," said Jensen. "You sure you don't want me to take this-?"

Jared laughed. He patted Jensen on the shoulder. "Would you relax?" he said. "I got this."

 **Harrisburg Sheriff's Office Jail Cell, an hour later**

"Yup," Jensen said, lying on his back in the cot. "You _got_ this."

"Hey, it happened again," Jared said weakly, from his position on the floor of the cell. "I mean, shouldn't you have said that like an hour ag-"

"Oh shut up!" Jensen snapped. He turned his back on his cellmate in disgust.

"I don't know what happened…"

"Oh you don't?! Really?!" Jensen turned back, sheer incredulity written all over his face. "At one point you were actually _weeping_ for God's sake!"

Jared crossed his arms defensively, unable to meet the accusing glare sizzling his way from the other side of the cell. "It was part of my FBI agent's tragic backstory," he explained testily. "I was channelling my acclaimed performance from _Thomas Kincaid's Christmas Cottage_. You know not many people know this, Jensen-"

Jensen groaned, and covered his face with his hands. "Dear God," he said, his voice muffled. "Not the Peter O'Toole story-"

"-but Peter O'Toole actually had to tell me to stop crying after one take. _Peter O'Toole_ , Jensen. He said to me: Jared, my boy, those tears you're crying are Thomas Kincaid's tears, _not_ yours. He said-"

"I'm like to cry myself in a minute," Jensen muttered.

Whatever the rest of the anecdote would have been, it would have to wait: a shadow fell across the cell at that moment. Both men looked up into the darkly amused eyes of the Harrisburg Sheriff.

"Agent Bullcrap," he said, inclining his head. "Agent Ham. You're being transferred to County. Up and at 'em. C'mon. Let's go."

As he opened the cell door, Jared got to his feet. "We don't have time for this," he hissed to Jensen. "Our window to go home is shrinking. We've got to get that fang."

"Just do as the man says," Jensen snapped, clearly still irritated.

The two men were placed in handcuffs and led through the corridors of the station until they found themselves in the rear car park. The Impala was still parked where they'd left it. The Sheriff motioned toward a prisoner transport van. His Deputy was currently jumping out of the back. Despite Jensen's advice, Jared began to struggle to get loose.

"You have to listen to us!" he said. "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean! There are vampires loose in this town! We need to stop them! We…" and there was an almost audible sound as he gave up on the pretence entirely, "we don't have time for this! I _have_ to get home to my wife! Please! I don't belong here!"

Jensen, until now silent, finally spoke up. "You're wasting your time," he said quietly.

Jared, pinned by one of the Deputy against the hood of a nearby car, looked at him with disbelief. "How can you just give up like this?" he asked. "By the time we're done rotting in County-"

"Jared, did you ever actually _watch_ the damn show?"

"What? What do you-?"

"We're not going to County," Jensen said. He looked from the Sheriff to the Deputy. "Are we, boys?"

Vampire teeth slid into view from the two lawmen. The Sheriff was grinning widely behind those chompers. "Well," he said, shrugging, "County Nest, if it's any consolation. Hell, we already got us an Elementary School class full o'kids stashed in there, but you two are welcome to be the cherry on top. We'll be chowing down on you folks til Hanukkah."

"Eve wants us alive!" Jared burst out.

"Oh, fan-friggin'-tastic, _Sam_ ," Jensen spat. "Attract the Big Bad's attention. This could have been a standalone filler vamp episode and _you_ just made it part of the arc plot."

"What the _hell_ are you two talkin' about?" the Sheriff demanded. He spun Jensen around to face him as he fired the questions. "Episode? Arc plot? And what's this show you keep bringin' up?"

Jensen faced him. "It's a little show called _Supernatural_ ," he said. "Started out as not much more than two unfeasibly handsome dudes battling urban legends in a cool car to some rockin' tunes. But that little show, it beat the odds, and it grew. Got some kickass fans who just wouldn't let it die, so those two brothers, they went on to battle demons and angels. They even slammed the Devil himself back to Hell and saved the world. It's a show where blood don't necessarily mean family, but family don't necessarily stop with blood, where you can count on good winning – sort of, eventually, at a cost sure, but it wins. It's a show where when people are being taken to County, they're _never_ really being taken to County. And it's a show where it's _this_ easy-"

And he held up his hands, currently free and unencumbered.

"-to slip a pair of handcuffs."

The Sheriff's eyes widened as he took this in, and just for a moment, everyone seemed to freeze in place. Everyone, that is, except Jensen 'Mad Dog' Ackles, who barrelled full-tilt into the Sheriff and Deputy, knocking them flying to the ground. Grabbing a set of keys off the now-prone Sheriff's belt, Jensen stopped for a second to unlock Jared's handcuffs.

By that stage both vamps had gotten over their shock and were already advancing. "The Impala!" Jared shouted. Before they could get to it the Sheriff and Deputy lunged at them but, somehow, they managed to avoid the flying bodies and reach the car.

"Keys?!"

"In there!" Jared said helplessly, pointing to the Sheriff's office.

The vamps were closing.

"Dammit!" Jensen pounded his fist on the trunk…which obligingly, and against all good sense and logic, popped upon. He spared a second to shoot a disbelieving look at his co-star, and then both men grabbed for the machetes stored with the rest of the weapons. Turning with a machete in hand apiece, they faced the two approaching vamps side-by-side.

"I'm sorry, man," Jensen said. "For the credits thing, for the conventions, for the mushrooms story. For everything. It's all been my fault."

"No, it hasn't-"

"Yes it has."

"I bribed the judges so you wouldn't get the Teen Choice Award," Jared admitted.

"We're gonna talk about that after," Jensen promised, and then he was fighting for his life.

He'd been hoping that some of that weird osmosis this universe seemed to possess would carry over into the fight. In six seasons of _Supernatural_ he'd lost count of the amount of fights he'd been in; at least a hundred, at a conservative estimate. Yeah, his stunt doubles handled a decent percentage of the rough stuff but he pitched in, kept himself in shape, threw himself around. That had to count for something, right? That had to give him a chance?

Turns out, no.

Sheriff Vamp was strong. And fast. Even as he was losing the fight, his mind flashed to the old rule about monsters on long-staying shows and how in their first appearance they'd generally be quite powerful and then, as time wore on, they'd slowly lose that power and new monsters would have to be invented. He'd seen it with demons, with angels, with vamps and werewolves on the show; the writer's room was already talking about bringing in some entirely new strain of monster for season seven.

This guy seemed not to have gotten the memo.

He ducked under Jensen's clumsy swings with ease. He was enjoying himself, Jensen realised. He was toying with him. _Oh God_ , _I'm going to die. How's that for convincing, Crowley_?

Jared wasn't doing any better. He was sprawled on the deck, flat on his back, the Deputy kneeling on his chest painfully. "You? You're meant to be Sam Winchester?" the deputy snarled, and Jared realised with a rolling swell of nausea that he could _smell the blood_ on the vamp's breath from his last meal. "The famous Hunter? The guy who stopped Lucifer? The legend? I'm supposed to believe that's _you_?"

The vamp laughed. "You were more convincing when you were sobbin' at the front desk about your dead grandma," he said.

Jared's eyes flashed. And just like that, the vampire's effortless control of his quarry started to wobble a little. The man below him seemed to draw reserves of strength from hitherto unknown quarters. The vamp found his hands getting pushed back.

"PETER…O…TOOLE!" Jared Padalecki roared, throwing the vampire off of him. He grabbed the machete that had fallen beside him. The vampire had sprung to its feet. It hissed, ready to put this momentary setback behind it and finish the job of feeding on this annoying meat until it had nothing left to give.

It sprang.

The machete moved through the night.

There was a spray of blood, and as the vampire hit the ground, it felt a strange sensation spreading downward from its neck; gravity, in point of fact. The severed vampire head hit the deck, dead before impact, both pieces falling to either side of Jared, standing perfectly framed in the moonlight with a bloodied machete.

"Thomas Kincaid says hello, _bitch_!"

Unaware of what was happening behind him, the Sheriff was advancing on Jensen, who he'd disarmed with a quick combination of punches that had rocked the actor-slash-Hunter back on his heels. "Before I gut you," he said conversationally, "I gotta know: how'd you figure it out that we weren't taking you to County?"

"I told you," Jensen said woozily, trying to stay on his feet, "it's all in the show."

"Right, right," the Sheriff nodded. "Any other tips, Truman?"

Jensen managed to smile. "Just that when you're a run-of-the-mill, villain-of-the-week like you, and you got one of the Winchester brothers cornered, it's best to take your shot early, before-"

 _Swish._

The Sheriff's surprised, dead head came to a rolling stop at Jensen's feet.

"- _that_ happens," Jensen finished, and then with the requisite badassery of the one-liner put to bed, he seemed to clock what he was actually seeing, and he promptly threw up.

Covered in sweat and vampire blood, Jared stood over the body of his second dead vampire, panting with exertion and exhilaration in equal measure. "Not bad, huh?" he asked proudly.

Jensen responded by throwing up some more.

Jared sighed. "Everyone's a critic."


	8. As One Wager Closes, Another One Opens

**A dark and deserted crossroads, Planet XJ00003332-H (Andromeda Galaxy) – the same time**

Yes, he was technically in hiding and supposed to be deceased, and yes there were lots of monsters in his little torture dungeon still to holy-waterboard into coughing up the location to the portal to Purgatory, but Crowley was, at heart (figuratively speaking; his own ticker had been dormant this centuries past) a businessman. When one of the deals he'd made for a soul came due, he made the time, made sure his desk was covered and his out of infernal office was on, and he came to collect – or at least, he came to watch his personal hellhounds do it for him. He felt he owed it to the soul.

Unlike most of his demonic compatriots, Crowley didn't hate humans. He found that a puzzling view. Quite apart from the fact that all demons had, at one time or another in the past, actually started off _as_ human, mankin…oops, sorry, _humankind_ (just because you were a demon was no reason not to be un-PC) was key to the whole Hell operation. Without humanity and its endless, Sisyphean lust for _more_ , each and every one of his crossroads deals would have fallen on deaf ears.

People assumed that crossroads demons generally dealt with the desperate, the end-of-their-tether sort, the terminal cancer patient or the suicidal scorned lover. And yes, there was a fair smattering of those, to be fair. But – and this was the wonderful part – most of the _homo sapiens_ that willingly signed over the most precious object in all the multiverse to him did so whilst still in possession of what, in any reasonable view, would have been a pretty decent life. The businessman who _had_ to close that big deal. The wrestler who _had_ to have that title shot.

He'd grown up in late seventeenth century Scotland, at a time when people lived much shorter and dirtier and less educated lives, when the poor could forget about unimportant things like 'rights' and 'votes' and women were treated more as property than as individuals. Fast-forward a few centuries and humankind had adorned itself with universal suffrage, democracy, and TiVo. And yet – he knew this, he'd checked – in terms of crossroads deals, humankind was making more now than ever. The more you gave them, the more they lacked; the more they had, the more they wanted.

Who couldn't love that?

When he felt the tug in his gut of a deal coming due, Crowley had handed his torture implements over to a henchdemon and instructed him in no uncertain terms to keep the good work going. Then, with a snap of his fingers and a quick materialisation of some fancy duds, he was off to whichever part of the world-

-except…

Crowley turned in a complete circle, making sure he was seeing what he was really seeing.

"Toto," he said softly to himself, "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

A massive, ringed planet dominated at least ninety percent of the available sky in front of him. His first thought, that he'd somehow found himself on one of the moons of Saturn, was dismissed when he saw that the planet was cobalt-blue in hue, with its rings running a gamut from deep crimson to mustard yellow. If he'd possessed a shred of humanity, Crowley felt sure he'd have found the sight beautiful.

"Huh," was all he said. He snapped his fingers again.

Nothing.

He stayed exactly where he was.

Crowley hadn't become King of Hell through a tendency to panic. He stopped his fruitless finger-snapping and started taking in more note of his surroundings. He was standing on a glassy, shimmering surface made of some indeterminate material that glowed and pulsed every time he shifted his weight slightly upon it. There was foliage of a sort around him; a rubbery-looking white substance lay over it. He couldn't help but note from a quick glance in all four points of the compass from where he stood that the "greenery" (whitery?) made a natural 'X' with him smack bang in the midst of that X.

"I'm fairly sure I don't remember E.T. selling me his soul," he said aloud. "So whoever summoned me here, get on with it. I haven't got all bloody day."

A man stepped from the foliage, holding some of flower in his hands. He was human, mid-thirties, bearded, smallish in stature, nondescript in appearance, the most normal looking man you could ever wish to meet.

"Hey Crowley," he said. "I'm God. We need to talk."

Crowley felt his eyes widen. Of all the possible responses to that seemingly preposterous statement that presented themselves to him, all the different smartass ways to laugh or scoff or be sarcastic or defiant, none made it to his lips, for the simple reason that he knew what the man said was true.

"About what?" he managed to say.

The celestial Allfather, known as Chuck, merely smiled. "Spoilers," he said.

 **Bobby Singer's house, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy - hours later**

True to Crowley's word, Bobby had regained consciousness as soon as Jensen and Jared had walked back through the front door.

They rather wished he hadn't.

Right now he was going through the ingredients the men had brought back from their fruitful trip to Harrisburg. Grumbling, mostly. "Inferior brand," they heard him say as he hefted a quart of ox blood, "I coulda got you a better deal off a guy from Kentucky."

Jensen rolled his eyes in Bobby's direction as he offered Jared a beer from Bobby's fridge. Jared simply looked at him.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"Offering you a beer, what's it look like?"

"Since when do you drink beer? And since when even if you do, do you go and get someone _else_ one?"

"What's that supposed to mean? That I'm some pampered actor? That's not me, man – not at all."

"Oh really."

"Damn straight," Jensen confirmed, sitting down heavily in the armchair opposite Jared, as Bobby continued to take inventory and mutter dark thoughts to himself.

"Okay Mr Common Man. How much is a pint of milk?" Jared asked.

"How much is a _what_?"

"A pint of milk. How much?"

Jensen's mouth made 'O' shapes. "In Canadian or American?" he said weakly.

"What's your social security number?"

"My…" Jensen thought, "…it starts with a 6. Hey you know what? If you don't want the friggin' beer, don't take it. I thought we were connecting back there in Harrisburg, and then you go and tell me you were the one torpedoed my Teen Choice Award? Screw you."

Jared threw up his hands in despair. "Haven't you figured it out yet? The reason – the _only_ reason – we're "connecting" here is the effect this…this place," and he indicated the world around him, "is having on us. It's making us behave like brothers. Real, actual brothers, who occasionally give a crap about one another, as opposed to two unrelated actors who can't stand the sight of one another."

A heavy silence hung in the air as Jensen mulled on this. It had the tangy taste of truth about it, he had to admit.

"You saved my _life_ back there, man," he said quietly.

"Sam Winchester saved your life," Jared replied, without looking at him.

Jensen sighed. "Does it matter?"

"Yes!" Jared bit out. Jensen was shocked to see how genuinely upset the man was. "Because if this works – and believe me, I want it to, I want to go home, see Genevieve – we'll both go back to behaving like total dicks to one another. You know it. I know it. So there's no point pretending this all meant something now, is there?"

Bobby had stopped grumbling, Jensen noted. He was watching, arms folded, an unreadable expression on his craggy features.

"It's weird," Jensen said eventually. "I said before, Sam and Dean's world…monsters, demons, the Apocalypse…I called it horrific. Said I couldn't imagine anyone sane wanting to live here. But you know what? I forgot something."

"Werewolves?" Jared guessed.

"No. I forgot that for all the darkness and the death, Sam and Dean have each other. And I never thought I would admit this, but man…I kinda envy them that."

"It's not real," Jared said. "None of this is, remember?"

Jensen shrugged. "What the hell _is_ real?" he asked. "I mean c'mon. Actors from the so-called 'real world' don't get sucked through interdimensional friggin' portals into their own fictional worlds last I checked. Maybe what you and I call home is just _another_ piece of fiction."

Jared snorted in bemusement at this. "I think you just hurt my brain," he said.

A beer was placed in his hand a second later. "I got a cure for that," Jensen grinned.

The bottles _clinked_ together. Swigs were taken. In the kitchen, Bobby Singer found a smile breaking out on his face that he never thought was gonna surface…

…and then, a mouthful of beer arced from Jensen's disgusted mouth.

"Dear God," Jensen spluttered, "what _is_ this? Is this what beer _tastes_ like? Bobby, do you have any Chardonnay?"

Bobby's smile vanished. He walked into the lounge with the spell ingredients in hand and his expression conveyed to an unusually astute Jensen that any further questions about supplies of wine were perhaps unwise to pursue.

"Time to put you two back Over the Rainbow," he said. "Let's summon that little demonic bastard and you two can collect your prize."

He put the ingredients together in the bowl; it was a surprisingly uncomplicated spell, considering. "Final ingredient," he said, and handed each man a knife, "blood of the travellers."

Jensen rolled his eyes. "It's never a 'dash of nutmeg' is it?" he said, and made as if to cut into his palm with the knife.

Jared stopped him. "What are you _doing_?" he said.

"The cutting thing?" Jensen said. "For the blood? I mean we must've done this in like fourteen episodes."

"Yeah, for dramatic effect!" Jared replied. "You ever _actually_ get a cut in the palm of your hand? Hurts like hell, right? And the risk of infection in that sucker? Sky high. It's gonna sting for _weeks_ every time you grip something. You _really_ want to walk around with a scarred palm for life because you needed, like, four drops of blood, maximum?"

Jared pulled aside his shirt, exposing the flesh of his upper arm and shoulder. "Seriously. Tiny nick up here. Same effect, _way_ less hassle."

As Jensen did likewise, Bobby Singer took a moment to glance at the palms of his hands, which were completely criss-crossed with a roadmap of angry little scars. "Y'know something," he murmured, "now and then you actor fellas can actually talk a little sense."

The blood was added to the mixture. Bobby incanted a few Latin words from the scrap of paper Crowley had given them. The mixture glowed…

"Hello, boys," Crowley said.

"Pay up," Jensen said.

"No foreplay?" Crowley cooed, disappointed.

"Save the snappy comebacks for the gag reel," Jared said. "We did what you asked, Crowley. We played our roles, we got the spell ingredients, we even took down a few vamps while we were at it."

"Yes, I saw that," Crowley said. "Can I just say I found your performance as a PTSD-afflicted FBI agent with crippling social anxiety extremely moving, Jared?"

"Crippling social anxiety?" Jared said. "That wasn't part of his backstory."

"My mistake," Crowley said smoothly, as Jensen made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. "Anyway, yes, you did quite well lads. Better than I thought, in actual fact."

Bobby was the first to smell it. "He's gonna stiff you," he said, getting angrier by the second. He turned to Jensen and Jared, red-faced with frustration. "Dammit, you two idjits! I could have _told_ you this was gonna happen-!"

"No," Jensen shook his head, "no no no. Bobby, relax. There's no possible way we didn't win this bet. Right?"

"Right!" Jared agreed vehemently.

Crowley inclined his head. "Mmm," he said, affecting a tone of genuine regret, "previously, on _Supernatural…_ "

He snapped his fingers. The room was abruptly a mite more crowded, as it was now occupied not only by Bobby, Crowley, Jensen and Jared, but also by spectral representations of the latter three men, standing in the exact positions they had been the day before.

" _So_ ," flashback Crowley was saying, " _the deal runs thusly: I give you a list of ingredients for the dimensional transference spell, and you two go pretend to be Godzilla and Godzooky and go get them. If you play your Sam and Dean roles convincingly – and allow to me to stress for the purposes of fair play,_ convincingly _\- you win._ "

"Sorry," the real, present-time Crowley said, "you – yes, you, the sexy one?"

" _Me, darling_?" said flashback Crowley.

"Yes, love – could you say that one more time?"

" _No problem, sugar_ ," flashback Crowley replied, " _all of it, or just the part about being_ convincing?"

Crowley shrugged. "Actually you know what, that'll do fine," he said, and with another finger-snap the flashback scene had vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He turned his attention back to Jensen and Jared. "Sorry that little recap didn't have _Carry On My Wayward Son_ playing over it but honestly, you have _no_ idea how much that bloody song costs to licence. I think you get the message, yes?"

"No!" Jensen exclaimed. "What, we weren't _convincing_? We got the job done! When exactly weren't we _convincing_ enough for you?"

Crowley rolled his eyes. "I thought we were done with the recaps, but okay, fine; one more."

Another finger-snap. This time, the spectral flashback figures were Jared, Jensen and the two lawmen-cum-vampires from Harrisburg. The Sheriff was talking. " _Well, County Nest, if it's any consolation. Hell, we already got us an Elementary School class full o'kids stashed in there, but you two are welcome to be the cherry on top. We'll be chowing down on you folks til Hanukkah._ "

Crowley smiled a terrible smile.

He stuck a finger out into the air and rotated another finger from his other hand beside it, as though rewinding an old cassette tape. The scene rewound obligingly.

"… _we already got us an Elementary School class full o'kids stashed in there_ …"

He rewound again.

"… _Elementary School class full o'kids_ …"

And again.

Faces draining of blood, Jensen and Jared met each other's eyes. "Oh God," Jared said.

Finger-snap. The figures were gone, leaving only a smug demon, two ashen-faced actors, and the world's angriest scrap metal merchant.

"Tell me you didn't," Bobby said softly.

"Tell me, how _were_ the little tykes when you showed up to rescue them?" Crowley asked. "Did they weep in gratitude? Did they throw their arms around you, their brave rescuers?"

"We…" Jensen tried to speak, and could get no further. He couldn't look at Bobby, whose hands had now balled into fists.

Crowley clutched at his chest. "You _did_ show up to rescue them, didn't you?" he said, seemingly aghast. "You didn't just pat each other on the back for your heroic antics killing those two vamps, pull some fangs out for your precious spell, and high-tail it back here, did you? Leaving those little kiddies to be abandoned in some vamp nest full of nasty bloodsuckers? That doesn't sound like a very Sam and Dean thing to do to me. No, not at all. But maybe I'm biased. Let's ask an expert, shall we? What do you think, Bobby?"

"YOU PAIR O'SELFISH DICKS!" Bobby Singer roared. He looked as though only a Herculean effort of will was keeping his hands from their throats.

Crowley shrugged. "Swing and a miss from our impartial judge, boys. See, here's the thing with Sam and Dean. They're a pair of self-destructive, borderline alcoholic, sexist pigs with a penchant for violence and a truly staggering capacity for stupidity. But much as it pains me to admit, they're _heroes_. And they'd never in a month of Sundays hear about a bunch of cute little rugrats in peril from the boogeyman and prompty ignore it to get back to their trailers and makeup artists. Bet…lost. Be seeing you."

He made as though to snap his fingers. Jared lunged forward. "Please!" he begged. "We didn't ignore it! We…" and he mumbled miserably now, "…we just, we forgot…"

This time, Bobby did lose it. He moved with surprising speed for a man his age and before any time at all seemed to have elapsed, Jared was on the floor and Bobby was shaking some life back into his fist, eyes burning while his attention turned to Jensen, who had remained uncharacteristically silent since the revelation.

"I'm sorry," Jensen said.

"Go to hell," Bobby spat. "The both o'ya. You two been starin' down your nose at me, my home, this entire damn world ever since you got here, and don't dare tell me otherwise. We're not real to you. We're fiction. So you probably figgered – well, class full _o'fictional_ kids versus us getting back to the _Real World_ , where's the contest, right? That about sum it up, _Jensen_? You two don't care about anything here, do you? You don't care about Sam and Dean. You're just achin' to get back to your pampered-ass lives."

Jensen nodded. "Yeah," he admitted. Jared fully expected Bobby to lay into him then, and for a moment it looked as though the older man was indeed going to do exactly that, but something about the way Jensen said it seemed to give him pause.

"You're right," Jensen continued. "I'm not a hero. I'm just an actor. My Dad's an actor same as me. He's still alive and well, thank God. I had a good childhood. A normal life. I was lucky to land this gig on _Supernatural_ , but I worked hard to get that luck. You're wrong, Bobby, you know that? I do care about Dean. And yeah, it's partially because he's been good to me; he's given me a steady job, a "pampered-ass actor" life, sure. But he's a good person. He's a hero. I just," and he spread his hands wide and laughed for a second, "I never thought that out there, somewhere he was actually, literally _real_ , but now that I know? I'm proud. I'm damn proud. There's a guy out there who has literally saved the world, and he wears my face, or I wear his. Whatever. So I _do_ care. I wanted him back saving people and hunting things as soon as possible. I guess…I guess I messed that up. And I am so sorry. If I could change it, I would."

A hand fell on his shoulder. "We both would," said Jared.

Crowley applauded. "There's your intro clip on _Ellen_ , right there," he said. "Moving. Beautiful."

"Get out of my house," Bobby snarled at him, reaching for his angel blade.

"Don't you want to hear my final offer first? Call it a final throw of the dice, if you will. Those were some right pretty speeches you made there, lads, but I'm forced to wonder if you meant any of it. Would you really throw yourself into the lion's den of that vamp nest if you could?"

"Yes," Jensen said.

"Absolutely," Jared agreed.

Crowley smiled. "Well then," he said. "Here's a choice for you. Either I send you two back home, and Sam and Dean can stay right where they are - you can employ them as your stunt doubles or I dunno, make a lot of women's sexual fantasies a reality, whatever – or…I can send Sam and Dean home, and send you two to the vamp nest to clean up your mess."

"With Sam and Dean to help?" Jared asked.

Crowley grunted. "Where's the sport in that?" he asked. "No no no. Just you two clowns. Up against maybe six, seven vampires."

"And if we survive somehow? Rescue the kids? We go home?" Jensen said.

Crowley shook his head. "No," he said. "No, not ever. Home, or vamp nest. Make your choice, boys. Clock's ticking."

Jensen and Jared looked to Bobby. He was breathing heavily, both from the exertion of slugging Jared and the rage he'd been experiencing only a few moments ago, but that rage seemed to have abated now. Truth be told, Bobby wasn't sure how in the world he should be feeling right at this moment. Wasn't sure if he wanted to strangle the two men in front of him, hug them, or both.

"You two ain't Hunters," Bobby said. "Said so yourselves. You'd never stand a chance against that many vamps."

"We'd try," Jensen said, with a faint smile. "I can do a mean Dean Winchester, you know. He's a scary sonofabitch, haven't you heard?"

"This world needs Sam and Dean," Jared said. "Without those two around, who's gonna stop the next Apocalypse? Buffy?"

"Let me go with," Bobby said, turning to Crowley. "At least even the odds a little!"

"Not. A. Chance," Crowley said.

"Thanks anyway," Jensen said. He offered Bobby his hand. "For everything. I played opposite a guy speaking your lines a hundred times and I thought I understood what you meant and truth was, I hadn't a clue. You're everything to those boys, Bobby. And you're gonna get them back."

Bobby didn't shake his hand. He embraced him. And Jared too. He fetched his best blades, pressed them into the boys' hands. "You swing hard," he told them. "You swing and you move. I'll be coming for ya, with Sam and Dean. We'll come and we'll get you, you hear?"

"Yes sir," they chorused.

Jensen looked at Jared, got a nod of assent. He turned to Crowley. "Do it," he said. "Send Sam and Dean home."

Crowley snapped his fingers.

The universe froze.

"You were right," Crowley said.

"Well," God replied, stepping out of the shadows, "I don't like to be _that guy_ , but it _is_ sort of in the job description."

He walked up to the immobile Jensen and Jared, poised and ready to be sent to their doom. "You had it in you all along, guys," Chuck said admiringly. "Good for you."

"So what happens now?" Crowley asked, a trifle nervously. He remembered the desolate loneliness of that impossibly far-off planet; a planet "Chuck" had told him, in no uncertain terms, that he would be left upon for all eternity if he didn't play ball. He didn't fancy trying to tempt the indigenous life-forms into selling their souls – chiefly because the planet's most sophisticated form of life looked like a fried egg made from semen.

Chuck seemed to have forgotten he was there for a moment. "Oh I have plans," he said brightly. "For these two."

"And…for me?"

"You're more of a wild card, Crowley. That's why I like you."

The self-proclaimed "King of Hell" didn't know whether being told by the Lord God Almighty that he liked him was something to be relieved about or insulted by.

"Relieved about," said Chuck, without looking around.

"So I can…go?" Crowley said, barely able to believe his luck. He prepared the teleportation spell in his mind, ready to make a fast exit.

"Yes, but one favour first. Wipe Bobby's mind of this whole encounter. Otherwise it'll just get a bit complicated."

Crowley blinked. "Er," he said.

"Problem?"

"Well…it's just…can't _you_ do that? Simple memory erase? I mean, you are the sodding Lord."

Chuck smiled. "Think of it as good practice," he said.

"For what?"

Chuck's smile got bigger. He walked closer to Crowley and suddenly, in his arms, was a collection of _Supernatural_ DVDs and Blu-Rays, episode guides and associated paraphernalia, all of which Crowley instinctively knew had until recently belonged to him and been very safely under lock and key in the deepest darkest corner of Hell. As he watched, they all went up in smoke.

"For you," said Chuck.


	9. Post-Credits Sequence

**On the set of** _ **Supernatural**_ **, Season 6, Episode 15: "The French Mistake", immediately afterward**

The prop window shattered into a thousand pieces, propelling the bodies of Sam and Dean Winchester through. What nobody on the set saw, of course, was that the moment the two men hit the breakaway safety glass, a simultaneous interdimensional transference took place, sending the bodies of the two Hunters back to whence they had came.

Jared and Jensen hit the cushioned mats sprawling, incoherent, still clutching the vamp-slicing blades pressed into their palms by Bobby Singer only a few moments ago and an entire sphere of reality away.

"Come on you sons o'bitches!" Jensen shouted, staggering to his feet. "Come get some!"

He was not greeted with the sight of a vampire nest. This was probably just as well, for if he had been, some luckless stuntmen dressed as vampires would have had a very bad day at work indeed. His vision was blurry as hell from the impact through the window and his own mostly hysterical state of mind, but he recognised his surroundings. He was on the soundstage.

"We did it," he murmured, unable to believe it. He turned to Jared, getting to his feet. "Jared, we did it! We're home!"

"FREEZE!"

Some of the details of the world around him began to coalesce properly now. The set was a mess. Walls were broken in, crumbled, as though someone had bulldozed clean through. That wasn't the worst part, though. There were bodies; not actors pretending to be dead, either, but actual, real-life, dead bodies scattered around.

Armed cops were pouring onto the set. Canadian cops, so again, they weren't pretending, they weren't part of the show. They surrounded he and Jared, training their weapons on both.

"DROP THE KNIFE! DO IT!"

"What the hell…?" Jensen breathed.

"WINCHESTER!"

He whirled, to see a man in a bloodied dark suit emerge from the destroyed remains of a set. He recognised the guy, vaguely; Carlos something? He'd been cast to play the villain of this epis-

 _Oh God_.

With a scream of vengeance, not-Carlos lunged forward, ready to run Dean through with a particularly wicked looking blade. That was all the advancing cops needed. Shots rang out, one after another, sending not-Carlos sprawling backwards, ugly red holes opening up all over his body. Eventually he slumped to the ground, the back of his head blown open, blood and brains spilling out onto the set floor.

"DROP THE KNIFE! FINAL WARNING!"

Jensen did so, the blade clattering to the floor below after what seemed like an age. Jared did the same. The cops swarmed them, checking them for further weapons, cuffing them both, frogmarching them outside.

Jensen spotted a familiar face. "Serge!" he called out desperately. "Serge, what the hell _happened_ here?!"

The tall French-Canadian man, cool as a cucumber as ever, eyed him with disdain. "Your little spat with that crazy extra spilled over, that's what happened," he said. "So now you can add Eric Kripke and Bobby Singer to Misha Collins on the casualty list. I congratulate you."

"Eric? Bobby? _Misha_? They're dead?" Jared gasped. "How?"

As they were led out to waiting Canadian police cruisers, Jensen's face darkened. "How the hell do you think?" he growled at Jared, in a voice that was suddenly three octaves lower than his own. "Sam and Dean god-damned Winchester, that's _how_."

It was as though a switch had flicked in his mind. He had gone to their world and he had tried to act like them, and be a hero: he had done things he had never thought himself capable of. And in return, it seemed, those two lumbering bastards had come here, to his world, to his life, and in not much more than twenty-four hours they had managed to decimate the show, kill his friends, and destroy his life utterly.

How had he not seen this coming? It was ever thus with Sam and Dean; so long as they came out the other side, they left a trail of bodies and shattered lives in their wake.

Even as the cops questioned him, even as the media reported in a frenzy on the incredible circus of activity and scandal that had engulfed the set of a hitherto low-profile sci-fi show, Jensen Ackles promised himself that this wasn't over.

 **An alleyway, Now**

The associated detritus encrusting the alleyway floor stirred, just once, feeling the beckon of a wind that did not originate anywhere on this plane of existence.

And again.

An electrical charge filled the air. A luckless cat had time to attempt to leap to safety, but too late; it was fried in a heartbeat, vaporised into nothingness by an expanding circle of white energy that sliced clean through anything in its path.

In the midst of that white circle, three figures materialised into being.

"Did we make it?" Jared asked. "Are we back?"

Jensen didn't answer immediately. Instead, he walked to the nearest wall of the alley, and drew a complicated symbol on it. Nicking himself in the shoulder, he added a drop of blood to the symbol, which immediately glowed with energy. Seeing this, Jensen smiled thinly.

"We're back," he said. "You ready?"

Jared, clearly nervous, steadied himself and nodded. He hefted the unconscious child in his arms. Tall for his age already, with a shock of brown hair and open features, the youngster was a ringer for Jared himself, and everyone had indeed assumed that he was Jared's son.

Except that, of course, that wasn't the truth at all.

"Let's go find your Daddy," Jared said.

 **The End**


End file.
